Last week, my always great for laughs co-worker U sent around an email saying she wanted to try this new pho place and did anyone want to go with her? I said no, I'm usually unimpressed with the veggie selections at pho joints. The following conversation ensued (except imagine if you can, it being much more painfully long and drawn out. To be honest, I can't capture how ridiculous any conversation with her is. It usually involves her taking whatever you say and making it about her and launching into some boring story. A prime example was the day she took over my co-worker's telling us about her honeymoon, and it suddenly became a conversation about how U is dying to go to Italy and has been planning a trip for some time, but she's been to France lots of times and just doesn't like it. I mean, she goes to France like it were LA, but something about it just doesn't feel friendly. Etc. Etc. Etc.):
U: Are you sure, I'm sure there'll be lots of vegetarian food.
S: Yah? I don't know. I like pho but most places have only meat. And even if they have some sort of veggie noodle dish, the broth will be chicken or beef.
U: Oh no, I know lots of pho places with good veggie options.
S: Ooh, I'd love some recommendations if you have any. I haven't had any luck with places I've been to in San Jose.
U: Oh, all the places I know are in LA. (This part of the conversation was a lot like the one we'd had - though conversation is a bit of a generous term - about some random awesome bus company in LA that had the most comfortable buses ever, and if they had those here in the Bay, she'd be taking buses everywhere. All because I happened to make a comment about homeless bums on buses.)
Well, great. Fat lot of good that does me. And why would you then assume there'll be veggie options if you in fact have no idea? But even worse was where the conversation went next, and I'm still unclear about how it happened exactly. But since I've noticed that conversations frequently turn into lectures, I guess I just went with it and kept looking for a good break to get back to work (yes, believe it or not, I'd rather be working).
U: For traditional Vietnamese pho, it's all in the broth. To be authentic, it has to be made with beef broth (sometimes chicen). I think there was a bit of discussion here about the broth is made. And then noodles and beef. A lot of places don't do it the right way, and just have basically what's just a noodle soup with meat.
All right, does anyone catch the hilarity here? I mean, I don't know, her people might know how to make a good pho, but they certainly can't seem to follow a conversation properly. I'm sorry, I thought the whole idea of there being no veggie options was totally ridiculous, especially in LA? She continued on obliviously for who knows how long.
And by the way, she reported back to me after lunch that oh yah, I had been right. Not a single veggie item on the menu.
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